Cyndi Lauper brings ‘Unusual’ tour to TPAC

Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 breakout hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is about as close to pop perfection as you’re going to get: An instant singalong that tipped its hat to the malt shop hits of the ’50s, tapped into the emerging “new wave” movement and laid the blueprint for the electronic-pop world now ruled by Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and others.

But, according to Lauper, it almost didn’t make it out of the studio.

“We almost ditched the song because it wasn’t working for me,” she recalls. “It’s like a dress. You put a dress on (and it doesn’t fit) — go to the tailor! I always believe that a song is tailored around the singer, the storyteller. The drums and the singer are the center. Everything else is peripheral and has to do a little dance of push and pull.”

That attention to detail was one of many qualities — along with powerhouse pipes, eccentric fashion sense and a Queens accent — that made her an overnight sensation. After, “Girls,” Lauper’s debut album, “She’s So Unusual,” scored three more Top 5 hits: “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and “All Through The Night.”

“I think that for a lot of people, it brings them a lot of joy,” she says. “It’s kind of my gift back to everybody.”

No one-hit wonder

But there’s another reason “Unusual” stands out to Lauper: “That was the one album that was heavily promoted.”

Her star may never have burned that brightly again, but the rest of Lauper’s three-decade output is nothing to gloss over. Along with many more hits (“True Colors,” “Drove All Night”), there’s adventurous works such as 1996’s “Sisters of Avalon,” which had her making trips to Hendersonville to write with musician and songwriter Jan Pulsford.

“I used to come down, and I played dulcimer,” she says. “I studied under (late dulcimer master) David Schnaufer. He was such a great player and did so many great things. I don’t play like those people. I play a little like a gorilla ... but I’m a rock musician, so of course it has that feel, and I’ve got nothing over (dulcimer player) Jean Ritchie, you know?”

Branching out has led to success in new frontiers.

Lauper wrote the music and lyrics for the 2013 Broadway musical “Kinky Boots,” and she became the first solo woman to win a Tony Award for best score at the annual ceremony earlier this year. That feat came on the heels of releasing her memoir last year, and just days before she kicked off the “Unusual” tour.

It has been fulfilling work, but has also meant less time with her husband and their 16-year-old son.

“The whole couple of years, honestly, have been pretty intense,” she says. “I honestly am looking for some serious time off so that I can just regroup, and just be with my family, be a mom. It’s weird to go do that because you’re on the road, you live the way you really look, and then you go back home and you have to look like a cross between Mother Cabrini and I don’t know, who’s the guy in black all the time? Some monk ...

“But for me, I wanted somehow to incorporate a regular, ordinary life with this extraordinary work that I’m allowed to do. I like to walk among the people. I don’t want to live in an ivory tower. I am looking forward to having a laundry room.”